baba's curriculum

This blog post goes for a limited few. 

I found this document in my computer hard disk; which took me to aug/sep 2009 memories. 

While I was struggling for marks and running the race to get that job, this document was annoying!! 

When I read this for the first time, it occurred to me 'what shit is this?' and closed the word doc and honestly this was nothing but senseless jumbled words; wondering why didn't delete it! 

Un-describe-able is what happened after that... 

And today, deleting this from the computer hard disk, won't help!!! 

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B2B: Emerging Structures and Relationships in Markets (STARMarkets)

Course Objective:

Dramatic changes in the landscape is a given at the cusp of a transformational upheaval. The chaotic and seemingly unpredictable movements that one sees at the global level in almost every walk of life on the planet have only left enormous amounts of confusion in its wake.

In this situation, it becomes pertinent to be able to note that within this dark smoke of uncertainty are patterns that seem to be emerging. These patterns may enable not only clarity on the “what's so?” of the situation at hand but more importantly the point to the “so what?” that will power the set of actions that could convert the current situation into an opportunity both for oneself as well as for the organizations and communities that one represents.

The course is therefore not designed to address a “how to?” kind of inquiry. Rather, it seeks to work towards creating a world view for individual participants that will enable them to see, design and work towards creating solutions that would enable optimal application of the available potential both individually as well as organizationally.

While terminology that precedes and is coterminous with change is used with alacrity (e.g.3G, B2B, CXO, or even older terms like vendor, customer, partner, etc) the significance of the each term remains in an evolutionary dynamic, changing with the current context of business. The course will essay to move the context of the title from its roots in the past (B2B) to a more sustainable scenario of the future  (like a B2X or even X2X) that comes from an emphasis on the study of the emergent structures and relationships in markets across all borders rather than its limited current (or past) expression.

The seeming complexity of the course lies only in the fact the emergent business reality is in sharp contrast to the economic, social and business reality of all the past years of the post-industrial revolution era  to-date, to which almost all of us, almost without exception, are sufficiently conditioned. The course essentially seeks to be an introduction to this emergent reality and a propellant for effective and sustainable action in this emerging new global order. 

The objective is to enable the creation of a group of dynamic actioners who not only can see and predict trends in various aspects of the business structure, but who can 'meta-polate' and design for themselves or for their employers, business structures and processes to fully exploit the opportunities that are showing up for those with the right vision. The ultimate success of the Course is in creation of a world-view for each student that s/he can use and revise on-goingly through her/his career both as a business-person and world citizen.

Curriculum:

 1.    Fundamentals of Business & their transformation

 2.    The Nature & Effect of Emergent Business Change

 i.      Evolution vs. Transformation

 ii.    Business Definitions & Structures

 iii.  Business to Business Relationships and Flows of Resources

 3.    Traditional Functional Aspects of Business and Markets, their disruption and its effects

 i.      The Continuing Dissolution of Asymmetry of Information

 ii.    Business Communication and Buyer Behavior

 iii.  Forecasting, Segmentation, Extrapolation & Meta-polation

 iv.  Structural changes in Businesses & Markets:

 a       Monoliths, Market Power, Centralized Structures, Networks, Platforms & Webs

 v.    The Emergent Theory of (Zero) Pricing

 vi.  Value, Value Chains & Surrogate Value

 4.    Directions of Business and Personal Opportunity

 5.    Incremental Strategic Action

 6.    Nature as a Model for Business in a Networked World

Pedagogy:

The course shall be conducted over one semester, in a three-hour weekly class session format. Apart from this class interaction, the course includes the active use of the latest mass distributed on-line technologies, such as e-groups, chats, etc. This ensures that the students get a hands-on look at the transformational processes that are emerging in communication, business design, marketing, finance, operations, etc. The pedagogy shall be extremely eclectic and will use a variety of cases, readings, references, discussions, class guests etc.

No specific text book has been prescribed. However, the following books are recommended for reference and study:

Chris Anderson: Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Chris Anderson: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is selling Less of More

Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger: The Cluetrain Manifesto

CK Prahalad/MG Krishnan: The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-Created Value through Global Networks

Peter Wayner Free for All

Seth Godin: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Evaluation:

Continuous and multi-dimensional evaluation are the two main principles on which the evaluation system for this course has been based. Every participant is evaluated for their continued contribution to the course and to its other participants. Each class session, all class documents, postings on the group, group and individual assignments, tests and examinations will all add up to make the individual scores for the course. Actual heads of evaluation (e.g. In-class Participation, Off-class (or On-Line) Participation , Presentations, etc) will be communicated during the course. The exact proportion of marks for each head of evaluation will depend on the amount of work accomplished during the course, it may be clearly understood that each head of evaluation will have approximately similar weights of the total percentage.

Additionally the current course record is shared with participants at regular intervals through the course. This facilitates continuous feedback to participants about their current performance levels as well as ensures that the group is well aware of the pattern of evaluation.

Special Note:

Participants are urged to follow meticulously all instructions issued during the course. 

Faculty:

Prithwiraj N Ghorpade

pgclass@gmail.com